Job, Housing, Sandbar, Hector-Fish, and Freaky Friday!

My private contracting job is finally starting to show promise. It was put on hold for a while but I'm supposed to be able to start on Monday! I really hope this works out because working from home sounds like a dream. I had a meeting yesterday morning to get all the details and now I'm just waiting for them to send me the software that I need. Be on watch, I could be calling your house very soon to see where you stand politically. Get ready!

I also have my housing situation all figured out. That was a HUGE relief. I was starting to have nightmares about living in my car for two months. I'll be staying at Ashley and Brie's apartment from mid-July to mid-August and then Erin offered to let me stay at her place from then until mid-September when the opera is over. Whew! Now all I have to do is move everything I own back to my parent's house and find an apartment in Chicago all while working one full-time job and a second part-time job and getting ready for this opera. NBD! In all reality, this is probably the least busy that I've been in the last few years. I feel like I get so much more accomplished when I have a million things to do in a very short period of time. Bring on the chaos!!

I've been a little agitated as of late. My sandbar has been sullied by a hillbilly with an attitude problem. Adrian and I were out on the beach and when we went back to the car, there was a note on the windshield. The note said that we were trespassing and if we didn't call him, he was going to turn Adrian's license plate number over to the authorities. Thinking that the whole thing was absurd, I call the number. The man immediately started ripping into me. I explained to him that at no point do we ever cross the fence and that we stay out of the area that is covered by the private property signs. We stick pretty close to the beach. This was something I was really conscious of because I didn't want to have this exact problem. He said that he owns all the land up to the water. When I inquired why his fence is nowhere near the water, he lost it. He kept saying that he was friends with the Game Warden and the Deputy Sheriff. I told him that according to his signing and the fence we weren't trespassing and I told him that I was going to get in touch with the sheriff. I told him that if the sheriff said we could be there, we would continue to go there. He said that people have been stealing his game surveillance equipment...I don't even know what that consists of. I wasn't going to justify his veiled accusation with a response and I just told him that I'd be in touch with the sheriff. I'm planning on going back out there to take pictures of the signs and fence and then videotape the path we take down the beach. I'm going to show them to the sheriff and see if we can find the property lines for that area. If he owns it, I obviously don't want to trespass. If he doesn't own it, you can bet that I'll be back. It is a nice place and I'm not going to let some jerk scare me away.

Two days ago someone returned a dead fish to Walmart. Shortly after, the fish started swimming around. Walmart policy doesn't allow us to put the fish back in the tank so we were supposed to wait for it to die so that we could dispose of it. It broke my heart. It just didn't seem right to let him die like that. I named him Hector and Erin asked management if I could take him home. They said yes so Adrian, Phil, and I got supplies and took Hector home. The cats were mind blown. They didn't know what to make of Hector. He seemed like he was having a rough time. He had a bad fin and the scales near his tale were completely gone. Despite this, I got my hopes up and was very excited to have a new addition to our motley crew of a family. This morning I came out into the living room and Hector was dead. I was really sad. I was already accustomed to having him around. I've decided that I'm going to get another fish because I already have all the supplies. I'm thinking I'll name it Hector Jr. but we'll have to see what he looks like. RIP Hector-Fish. For your short time in our household, you were loved. :-(

FREAKY FRIDAY!!!

Today I'm going to talk about something that freaks out Adrian. Sssssnaaaakkkkesssss. :) I'm not scared of snakes but Adrian is easily destroyed in the face of snakes. The reason I bring it up is because we are going camping in the Black Hills next weekend and Brie, another snake hater, brought up the fact that there are snakes there. I'm thrilled with the possibility that we might see one and that Adrian will be scared out of his mind. It is mean spirited but he laughs at me every time I run from bugs so this is a little bit of payback. I might even have to go looking for a snake so that my enjoyment is guaranteed. I'll never tell if it happens though. You'll never know for sure if it was a coincidence or if it was a deliberate fiendish act. Keep an eye out for the results of this adventure. It should be excellent. :-D

Fifty Shades of Grey

Goodreads Synopsis:

When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms.

 Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires.


Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have been putting off reading this book for a while. Every time I picked it up in a store to buy it, I talked myself out of it. I finally caved and bought it. It took me much longer to read than it should have because I kept having to put it down. There are two reasons that I needed to put it down from time to time.

1. The writing style is absolutely awful. We are following the story in the mind of a 22 year old but she seems like a 12 year old. She seems to have multiple personalities and can't mentally articulate beyond "oh" and "what". Anastasia is the most obnoxious character. I really can't stand her. She was a submissive for a very small portion of the book and she cried like a baby whenever he did exactly what he told her he was going to do. Every character had extreme mood-swings that were impossible to keep up with. Christian caved on his contract and altered his lifestyle in the blink of an eye. It just didn't match up with the badass character that E.L. James had developed earlier in the book. The writing would get so bad that I had to put it down just to keep from tearing it in half.

2. The sex is amazing. Despite all of James' shortcomings as an author, she knows how to write some good sex. You really couldn't help getting caught up in it all. I've read a few romance novels in my day and I'd say that James knows her way around the bedroom. The sex was so good and so constant that I had to put it down because it was making me blush. I kept looking around the breakroom at my job to make sure nobody could tell that I was reading something naughty.

I almost gave the book 2 stars because the writing was so abhorrent. I upped it to three because it got me hot and bothered. That's worth a star any day. ;)

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Goodreads Synopsis:

 By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?


Wither by Lauren DeStefano
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book was...not my favorite. I had a hard time pinpointing exactly what I didn't like about it. I'm thinking that my major issue is that it lacked substance. We never got to know any of the characters very well. It is difficult to feel an attachment to something that you don't understand very well. We were told what the physical appearance of everyone was but there wasn't any emotional depth. I shouldn't say there wasn't any, there just wasn't very much. Whenever a character died, I thought that the feelings were described accurately...but...it all just seemed like dystopic book writing by numbers. It seemed really formulated. I especially despised the way that the book ended.

I understand that this book is the first in a series (as all books have to do now :S)but I just wanted a tad bit more of a hook. The ending of this book gave me no incentive to read the next one. I will because I want to see how the story evolves, but from the way the book ended I wouldn't have even known that it was part of a series if I hadn't looked it up.

Sterile. I think that's the word that I'm looking for. This story is sterile. The main character was a victim of a crime that was running rampant throughout her time period. She knew it would happen and she knew what was expected of her. Nothing bad really happened to her. She was kidnapped but she wasn't raped, she was treated like a queen, and she was angsty as all get out. Her emotions are really confusing. She loves Gabriel...but she kind of loves her husband...but she can't love him because his father kidnapped her and he doesn't even know it...but she likes the way he makes her feel...but she needs to get out just so she can prove that she can...it is all so annoying. It's difficult to get into a book if you don't like the main character. That's what happened with me here. Hopefully the books will progress and I will grow to like her. I guess we'll see!

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Night Road

Goodreads Synopsis:

For eighteen years, Jude Farraday has put her children’s needs above her own, and it shows—her twins, Mia and Zach—are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude. Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia’s best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable.

Jude does everything to keep her kids safe and on track for college. It has always been easy-- until senior year of high school. Suddenly she is at a loss. Nothing feels safe anymore; every time her kids leave the house, she worries about them.

 On a hot summer’s night her worst fears come true. One decision will change the course of their lives. In the blink of an eye, the Farraday family will be torn apart and Lexi will lose everything. In the years that follow, each must face the consequences of that single night and find a way to forget…or the courage to forgive.


Night Road by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was the most heartbreaking story that I have ever read. I couldn't put it down. I just had to keep reading and see how these complex characters would find their way back to happiness. I cried for the majority of the second half of the book and it really made me feel something. The imagery made it really easy for me to step into the shoes of each character. As someone who has lost a sibling, I found the emotions and reactions to be dead on. She really capture the raw, tortured feelings that people have when they lose someone. I really can't go on enough about how much the story touched me.

The only thing that I didn't like was how over-descriptive Kristin Hannah was on occasion. I found myself skipping entire paragraphs because they were full of irrelevant information. It didn't happen a lot though and it is easily compensated for by all the amazing writing that she did. She really makes you want to find Lexi and shelter her. She is so selfless and deserving but she gets nothing but stepped on. I wanted to be her friend and make her life easier.

I have nothing else to say. The book was phenomenal and I highly recommend it to people who want to read a good tear-jerker.

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